Certifications from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) require a rigorous procedure that certifies operational safety. Not only airlines and airplanes must have a certificate to be approved for their use, but also different procedures and tools must have an FAA certificate that ensures the confidence of their application in aeronautical operations.
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What is a flight training device?
Previously we have known what a commercial flight simulator is, which virtually replicates various situations of the piloting experience of an aircraft, however, this type of flight simulators (commercial, recreational use) are not enough to prepare a pilot for the handling of an aircraft replicating its systems, the standard atmospheric conditions (isa), the possible adverse conditions it faces, and the estimated response of the aircraft.
More complex flight simulators are used to train pilots, usually called “Flight Training Devices (FTD)”. These are made up of 2 systems, one that is physical; which must perfectly replicate the cockpit of an airplane to ensure that the pilot is well adapted to the instrumentation and avionics that will operate in real life, and the software; which will pose virtual flight situations and the pilot must respond to the situation, the software obtains the response from the hardware and simulates as real as possible what the response of the aircraft would be in operation.
Why is the certification of a Flight Training Device important?
In this case, the certifications ensure that the pilots who are going to be trained in the device will actually have an experience equal to what they would have physically in the cockpit of the real plane, and will know the capabilities of the aircraft, as well as its limitations; This is important so that pilots when driving an aircraft for the first time, already have sufficient experience in handling the aircraft and do not expose the lives of the crew and passengers. Recently, a series of airplanes were enabled which among other things had handling failures that were not taken into account in the simulation, causing 2 accidents; you can read the detail in The Boeing 737 MAX receive authorization from the US to fly again.
The Pilatus PC-12 NGX Training Device certification
First of all, the device has been developed by Frasca Internacional, a company dedicated to the development of flight simulators for pilot training in various aircraft and helicopter models. The device developed is the first to be developed for the Pilatus PC-12 NGX and will be used for training future crews of said aircraft.
An exact replica
The US Federal Aviation Administration has ensured that the Flight Training Device developed by Frasca is an exact and accurate replica of the Pilatus PC-12 NGX cockpit operating environment, and also that the software responds exactly how the systems would respond, software and hardware (physical) in real life when operating the aircraft.
What do you think of this topic? Would you like to experience piloting on a Flight Training Devices?
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Image by Bill Larkins via Pixabay under Creative Commons license.
